Twitter in the classroom-for large discussions
This youtube video about using twitter in the college classroom came to my attention from a retweet by @edutopia to student’s blogpost at Butler Collision Repair Blog
This is really worth taking the time to watch. It explains how twitter can be used to encourage deeper student participation in a discussion when they are in a 90 minute class with 100 other classmates.
The students can add their tweets via phone or computer. These tweets are distinguished from the mass of other tweets by using a hashtag. All of the tweets with this hashtag are projected onto the board at the front of the class for all to see, share and respond to.
Benefits to this way of learning:
- All voices can be heard and have equal weight
- 140 characters is a limitation, yet also a filter to quality information
- Participation can include students and staff who are not present
- There is a record of the discussion that can be used as a study guide later
It is only at the end of the video when the teacher mentions that she told the students “it was going to be messy”. I think this is the key component to introducing something like this into the classroom, it will be more likely to succeed if all participants go into it with the knowledge that everyone in the class is learning, that it is a process and that the form will shape itself as it goes along. On the video it didn’t look messy, until the teacher brought it up. I’d love to hear your thoughts and whether you have used twitter in the classroom.
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